A blog for the anthology-of-shorts feature film, four tales of sexual intimacy

Monday, November 23, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO: Chloe & Fireman Frank pt 3

When last we left Chloe with Fireman Frank, Frank was just about to open his metal box...

After one last exhale, he opened it and I saw things I immediately recognized: women's clothes. Although mainly lingerie, stockings, and panties, there were other items one could describe as Frederick's-of-Hollywood sexy: the ubiquitous black, shiny, cheap mini-skirt, a sparkly sequinned blouse from the Large Gals department, and even a pair of beat up high heels that looked like two dainty red patent Tonka firetrucks in a size 15. He continued to cry and couldn't even look at me.

Shame is a powerful theme in my work that I'm often forced to deal with. I see people at their most private and vulnerable. I'm so lucky I'm as sensitive as I am. And so is Frank.

This is what I give to my clients: understanding, love, guidance, encouragement, mind-blowing sex any way they want it, when they want it, and all completely free of judgement. Frank and I have been seeing each other for over 9 years now. He comes over, we'll spend an hour getting him dressed in modern women's clothes that actually fit him and make him feel the way he wants to feel, with his "outside matching his inside", as he likes to say. The best part of Frank, or Bella's (as he likes to be called when dressed), story is that he came out to his sons as a crossdresser. I've even met one of them.

I could write volumes on the injustices of such a world that would allow a man who bravely and regularly saves the lives of complete strangers to feel so hideously about himself. I'll never fully understand the power we attribute to inanimate pieces of cloth. But what I do understand is what Frank and I give to each other after nine years of talking, laughing, bumping "pussies" and trying on hats! And anyone who doesn't understand needs to unpack his/her own impermeable metal box.